Haggis Lovers

The USDA has decided to reconsider their ban on haggis, the national dish of Scotland. If you don’t know, haggis is a type of sausage made from sheep heart, liver and lung that is rolled in oats, onion and pepper and then stuffed into a sausage casing and boiled. Maybe you wish you had remained uninformed. While it’s not a dish that most Americans beat down doors to get, there are a loyal group of haggis connoisseurs.  I myself  had the opportunity to try haggis as a teenager at the house of a friend and found it quite tasty indeed. Of course it took some major coaxing to get me to try it. The U.S. has had a ban on haggis since the U.K.’s mad cow scare of the 1980’s and the recent announcement that the Department of Agriculture is now possibly willing to lift that ban has Scottish producers more than a little excited. Again, haggis is probably not the type of food that will be flying off the grocery store shelves if the ban is lifted but it will be a happy time for the more than six million Scottish Americans if it is. Who knows, if given the opportunity more Americans might find that haggis, like the bagpipes, can really grow on you.